From Dawn to Sunset
by BesideReal
Summary: Richard had rewritten the ending. One-Shot. Written one year ago.


**Written by BesideReal**

**Beta Reader: my friend, the amazing, Sara Bresciani.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own nada. The 100th ep was beyond the perfection. *Thumbs up***

* * *

**From Dawn to Sunset.**

* * *

The investigations had led them to a very ancient structure, certainly dating back to the nineteenth century. It was an old, disused prison.

The walls were made of small bricks between the fleshtone and the light brown. The atmosphere around them was motionless; everywhere they breathed in an abandonment which sent them back to when everything in that place had stopped. From the outside you could only see a single floor, but it actually extended for other two floors below.

And it was close to the river. Very close.

More than a week had passed since Richard Castle had gone.

No letter of recrimination, no warnings. Not even one last message to his daughter Alexis or his mother Martha. He seemed to have evaporated.

Though the detectives knew that couldn't be true: someone had certainly had him kidnapped.

They had tracked his cell phone.

That little I-phone lay on in the middle of an avenue of the city. They had requested the tabulates, checked the phone calls, both with his family and the publisher, without neglecting the external contacts, like friends and bookstores or restaurants he usually went to. But nothing suspicious had been detected in Richard's behavior, no one who might have a pending account on him, not even someone envious and jealous of his fame. They were at a dead point.

The only lead to follow was that old, abandoned prison, that had been recommended by his colleagues from the publishing house.

It seemed that Castle had been there several times in the past to study the structure, wanting to use it in his next book. That place was their last hope to find him.

They found themselves in what seemed to be a merchant ship. Along the sides of the long corridors, rusted bars marked individual cells which were dirty and divided by ruined walls. Everything was surrounded by a ghostly silence.

Wearing bullet-proof jackets and holding weapons of order did not manage to ease the anxiety that the place caused, the fear that they wouldn't find him there.

The Castle family hadn't lost its hope yet, they trusted Beckett's team. They trusted their work, their will and determination.

A person so famous could not go unnoticed, even in a big city like New York, but they had had to deal with both the indifference of people and the excessive exuberance of some fans.

Even the dust arising with each step was becoming hateful.

They did not see it because the floor was a little dark, though they could feel the heaviness of it. That damn jail almost caused claustrophobia!

* * *

"We checked them all .." Said Kate holding the weapon in her hand, lowering her arms in order to take a better look at the surroundings, trying to spot even the smallest detail.

"We checked everywhere..." She continued, her voice shaking.

A worried Esposito, who stood just behind her, looked at her frowning.

"What if he's dead?" She asks with red, watery eyes, tears ready to stream copious down her cheeks.

"Don't say that!" Javier growled, while Kevin Ryan was inspecting other cells, not far away from the two.

"We checked every single place!... We have omitted no call, advise, or movements he had done!... But we haven't found anything!"

"You know he can't be gone." Esposito replied firmly, almost yelling at Beckett; signs of compliant were visible on his face.

"We still have other places to check..." Insisted the hispanic. "Castle must be in one of those!" He observed her, but could only see surrender.

"We checked every single corner..." Continued to stutter the woman, closing the eyes to keep herself from crying again and running a hand through her hair in a nervous gesture.

"We need to keep checking Kate ...maybe we just missed something here..."

"And what if we didn't...?" She spoke dimly.

"And since when do you give up on your first shot Kate, huh?"

"It's been ten days Javi... and we haven't gotten any sign. Nobody telling us to have seen him somewhere... it's like he dissolved... and I'm sure we won't find anything in this place." She finished in a low voice.

"Kev! Let's keep going." Javier told his friend, following him down the hallway

He wanted to encourage her first, but when he saw her so devastated, slowly walking away to the right, getting into an open cell and leaning against the wall, flopping down onto the ground and turning her back on them, he found himself at a loss of words. Javier knew that she needed a few minutes alone with herself to recover, so he left her there to continue his work.

He had no intention to surrender.

Kate looked lifeless as she collapsed to sit on the ground. Her eyes held no more tears; they silently snaked down her suddenly red cheeks. Agitation, frustration, anxiety: all the emotions came pouring out, rejecting reality, in a voiceless but meaningful cry.

This case was not like other, not because his partner was involved, but because everything led to a dead end. It had never occurred to her to find herself in such a situation, with no clue of where to start. And the bad luck had wanted that to happen on her missing partner's case. She couldn't accept it. She couldn't rationalize it.

She had kept all the promises, even the one made to the writer's family. But the responsibility and the sense of impotence were becoming urgent with each day; without any valid discovery, failure would have been unbearable.

She didn't want to cry, but she was a human being after all. Her role as detective had ripped in a matter of seconds and she couldn't manage to fix it in any way; up until that moment she had not realized how much that case had destroyed her.

That case was personal, that case was about her family.

* * *

Ten minutes had passed and the two detectives were yet to return, still engrossed in their ispection of the decayed prison.

Kate rose from the uncomfortable position, mostly because of the rough floor, and started walking to stretch her legs, without a precise destination: she only wanted to get away from that place, whose smell was becoming sickening.

The tears had emptied her mind, she could feel the reverberation of her own neurons slowing down. The red eyes showed that her irises had become green, a bottle green that rarely appeared alone in them, being almost always accompanied by a wonderful nutty nuance.

Walking among the cells she felt lonely.

That prison was awakening all her worst demons, including surrender.

She wondered whether she was really giving up or not. Was she really giving into her pessimistic thoughts? The awareness of the positive response arose new, bitter tears.

She had even ended up thinking that Castle had not disappeared but had abandoned her.

Only after a few seconds the detective heard some sinister noises which seemed to be both footsteps and loud crackings of material. She looked around, figuring that it must have been his two brothers coming back to her, but there was no shadow. Then she thought they must have been mice, and after a few minutes the noises stopped.

For a moment Kate thought she had ended up in another world.

The noises echoed again, stronger this time, though from a further point. A sixth sense made her take out her gun, sliding it out of the holster; but she hesitated, because she wanted to understand if there was someone else there beside her and her collegues first.

She felt her body trembling, not from fear, but from the cold that chilled her bones. Although it didn't seem so, she was not okay, her heart was not okay.

She got into a smaller hallway and spotted a shadow, which turned out to be a person. He was bent, but not on the knees. He was wearing a cobalt blue sweatshirt and the hood was lifted over his head, preventing everyone else from seeing his face. His pants were grey, slightly baggy, and he wore sneakers. She observed him curiously, while he rummaged in a backpack.

He looked like a wall writers but he actually wasn't.

Kate glanced back, just in case the two detectives had returned, and when she turned back to face the person standing in front of her, her breath caught in her throat.

Two sapphire eyes, of a lighter shade than the sweatshirt he was wearing, suddenly stared at her, got trapped in her own, leaving her petrified. She felt the need to lean against the wall of one of the cells, to stand firm on her legs; she watched him open-mouthed, shaking, not for the cold, but for the disbelief of the moment.

She approached the person without saying anything, looking at him like he was a ghost, although he definitely wasn't. She stroked his cheek; it was slightly rough because of the beard, and the man wouldn't stop staring at her, as if seeing a ghost himself.

It was Richard. He had reappeared out of nowhere and it didn't matter to her; all that mattered was that she had found him, that he was a part of her life again.

She hugged him, placing her head on his chest and not noticing that he showed no happiness, but a strange sadness instead.

"I'm not your Richard..." He began serious and distant, with a subtle bit of regret. She immediately broke away, staring at him with an even more shocked expression.

"I am not the man you are looking for, Kate."

"What are you talking about?" She asked softly, thinking that the man was out of his mind.

"I'm not, Kate..."

"But you're here, made of flesh and bones, what are you talking about, Rick?! Don't fool me around..."

"Kate... look..." He invited. "He's not me." She stared at him carefully in the eye, but could not understand, as she touched his nose, his lips and his face once again.

"The Rick that you are looking for is not me, but he's still alive!"

Kate tried to respond, but she had no time to utter a single word.

"Listen to me Kate..." He whispered. "Richard is alive ... you're almost there. He's alive." He swallowed, visibly shaken for a certain reason that was still unknown. "Trust me when I tell you that he's alive. He needs your help Kate. You can't leave him.". Instead of reassuring her, that only made her crying more. "I know that it's hard to believe but it is true."

"If you're just an illusion, tell me please." She stammered among the tears.

"I am not an illusion..."

After embracing her one more time, he gently broke away from her. He grabbed the black backpack and, rummaging inside, pulled out a gas mask. It was made of metal, with thin inlayers, and it covered his face from chin to nose, up to a few millimeters below the eyes, leaving them exposed. He hooked it along his ears; with the hood pulled over his head, everything was covered, so he was unrecognizable.

"Where are you going?!" the detective exclaimed, absolutely not willing to walk away from him, a strange Richard who did not behave as usual.

He turned around and watched her peacefully.

"I'm going to free Richard."

* * *

He was sincere and determined as he answered.

Kate followed him without hesitation, still confused by all the strange things he had said. She couldn't do anything but follow him. His tread was rhythmic just like that of a soldier; his legs never buckled nor he turned around. It was hard to believe he was Castle, but it was just as hard to believe that he wasn't.

Beckett was breathless; she couldn't make out why, if it was because of her feelings or because she couldn't keep up with him easily.

At some point they crossed Ryan and Esposito; they were amazed to see Beckett with this person, who seemed not to have even noticed their presence and hadn't even looked at them.

"Hey! Hey where are you going?" The irishman followed them, ready to pull out his gun, but he was stopped by the woman who glared at him without giving an explanation and warning him not to make another move.

"Who is he?" He asked her colleague. "Kate, who is he?"

She didn't reply, shaking her head,, while Esposito firmly held his gun.

"Where are you taking us?" The female detective asked slowly, earning only a look from him.

They arrived at the end of the hallway, which now extended horizontally in front of them.

The two detectives continued to study his figure, but only the hispanic jolted slightly, as if he had somehow managed to recognize a familiar silhouette. They watched him rummaging in his backpack and only eventually realized that he had a small bomb in his hand and was placing it in two different spots on the ground.

Javier, alarmed, urged everyone to leave, but the man didn't move, even when Kate shouted at him to do the same; he did something strange instead.

With a firm knock of his hands, he made the ground swallow the dynamite, making it implode without causing any superficial damage, except for some cracks in the wall. He stood up and backed away from the explosion a few inches.

"This prison is very old, the floors you have inspected are not the only ones here. In the past each building was planned in every small detail. In the past..." The man paused, narrowing his eyes to take a better look at some precise points. "Things were never as they seemed, even more than now. People were clever and slimy, and these prisons the valid proof of the mentality of those times" He continued, his voice disguised by the metal mask, but very clear at the same time.

The two detectives still did not trust him and Kate noticed that his voice was different, hough he had Rick's physical appearance and expression.

"So this prison has an underlying secret floor?"

She asked curiously, feeling the sharp gaze of her two brothers on her.

"There are many secret things of the past, and things that we might know, but that don't matter to us. If they did, we might avoid several mistakes in the future instead."

"Who are you?"

"It's not important for you hispanic. .. Stand back." The man dryly replied, irritating Esposito.

The man tapped on the floor and then, with a tidy kick, managed to create many more cracks to make the floor collapse under their feet. The others were certain that it would have been hard to go down there and started thinking that the man knew that building far too well.

From the opening they could only spot darkness. The strange Richard carefully stared at the bottom without moving. "Here we are." Was all he said.

"Stop there." Javier came forward, blocking him with one arm across his chest. He didn't like that self-effacing behavior, although his eyes expressed something else. In that case it didn't matter that the eyes were the mirror of the soul. "We'll go first..."

The man raised his hands and stepped back, leaving them they space they needed.

"You won't find a staircase, man. You will need to go down climbing the bricks. I recommend you to call backup so you can leave..." Said confidently the mysterious Richard.

"Why!?... Are you going to let us rot here?..." Spoke Ryan, visibly irritated, coming to stand chest-to-chest with him, despite being smaller.

"Call backup Ryan."

"But ...!"

"Call them!" Beckett insisted without hearing his complaints.

"Did you hear that? Do what she says..." Echoed the man, almost teasing, yet never showing superiority or despise with his eyes. And so the Irish obeyed.

Javier performed the first attempt to climb down; his brother lit up the place for him with a flashlight. Though the masked man gave him with a lighter, more powerful and technologic one. It was perfect for the occasion. Beckett, who was watching them from behind, began to wonder who the man really was. If he wasn't the real Richard, what was he doing there? And especially, what did his presence among them mean?

The mysterious Richard turned to her after the little Ryan had gone down the chasm, and one look was enough to invite her to climb down.

"Go down slowly..." He whispered to her, lowering his gaze when she passed next to him.

Beckett carefully did as he had suggested. After getting down, she only took a few steps forward, then looked up again toward the opening and noticed that the man had already reached the bottom. The real Castle wouldn't have been so nimble, he really did not look like him. Yet they shared the same physical appearance, and even the same expression: that of a man very much in love.

It was even darker: not a single ray of light could get through, contrasting evidently with the upper floor they had just come from.

"Are there any exits?" Ryan asked, worried.

"Yes, just one down there." The man answered, pointing to the left, directly among the cells, which were identical to those on the upper floor. "But I don't think you should use it. The stairs might collapse under even the slightest pressure."

"Looks like you have already been there..." the blond detective pointed out curiously.

"Yes... sometimes... but then I decided to stop. I could lose everything." Said the man bitterly, as suffering from painful memories. Kate was able to perceive his tone more than the others. "Those aren't places to joke about. The less you know, the better..."

"But you're taking us somewhere... so you know what we are looking for. How did you come here!? Who are you!?" Ryan exclaimed furiously, supported by Javier.

"Lower the weapon Kevin! Now!" Beckett yelled, surprising his fellow detective, but not the man. "Lower the weapon! He's taking us to Rick!" she said approaching him.

"Then he's one of the kidnappers." Esposito replied, snatching up his handcuffs.

"Stop!" shouted Kate. "I order you to stop Esposito!"

She continued with a serious expression, without looking away from him: she was sure of what she was doing. And she wanted them to trust him like she did, despite not knowing anything about him. She was still their boss and they should not disobey her. With extreme reluctance and very slowly, they listened to her; the eyes of the mysterious man thanked her.

"I'm taking you to him..." The masked man explained quietly.

"We need to hear how you know this..."

"This is not important. Pretend that an informant has accidentally stumbled across you and gave you the solution to this case."

"We are armed and we could arrest you any moment."

"No, as long as this woman is with you. I didn't come armed and I didn't attack you indeed, I'm helping you to solve the case and I claim at least a recognition for the help that I am giving you without anything in return." He answered outspoken, making their thoughts dissolve and rendering them speechless in a millisecond.

His speech incredibly helped a little smile to form on the woman's face. She acknowledged that the man really looked like Castle, but the more they kept going, the more her heartbeats increased.

"Then if you're helping us, you would know why he was kidnapped and hidden here." Ryan emphasized the last word trying to wound him.

"Certainly whoever has abducted him aimed at his money, and when it's money that moves this kind of actions, it doesn't matter if you keep the hostage alive or not. And about this place, they might have stalked and kept an eye on him, or brought him here threatening the lives of his loved ones. A simple, but effective procedure."

His line of reasoning fit like a glove, and they all agreed on that.

"I bet the kidnappers already know where to spend his money after leaving him to rot here, they don't care if we are going to find him, leaving him to die in a remote and inaccessible place is pure sadism, is the most evil and cruel action that can be made. To hide a person in a place that doesn't fit with her own history at all."

Kate was now sure that something plagued him, and her heart started beating faster in her chest because she felt that her partner was somewhere nearby. Trusting the mysterious Richard, advancing slowly with the flashlights, they roamed far and wide until the masked man spoke among everyone's sighs.

"There he is."

* * *

"Rick!" Shouted Beckett, suddenly forgetting about everything else.

He was in a dirty and dark cell, with the door closed. Kate entered immediately before the others. He was sitting on a chair, his hands squeezed together and tied with a rope behind his back, his head hanging forward as he was in a state of half unconsciousness.

He wore a light blue shirt and dark blue trousers. The clothes were soaked with blood and his face looked pale and had a visible cut on the lip. The flashlights at the beginning gave him trouble, as he complained for the sudden lightning.

When Kate looked at him in the eye, under the lights, she noticed that he looked worse than she thought. He had dark shadows under his eyes and many small scratches across his face.

His body was aching, probably due to the effect of the blows received. All the time spent in that sitting position had made him become numb, and hadn't definitely eaten and drunk for several days: his lips were dry and chapped.

Not thinking at all, Kate kissed him. A kiss on the lips, full of despair, nervousness, joy and disbelief because her man was still alive.

Her tears were for the writer as the rain for the desert. She could barely pronounce his name as she was overwhelmed by emotion: she had found him.

In a state of semi-confusion, Richard could barely make out that the person in front of him was Kate, but she was the only one who would kiss him like that.

Castle tried to ask for water. Kate turned to his two friends.

"Water. He needs water."

"Backup is coming Beckett."

"Rick... honey, it's Kate. Hang on a little... just a few more minutes, backup is coming." She told him, suddenly receiving from him only moans of approval; he was visibly fatigued.

She just couldn't believe that the miracle she was hoping for had actually happened. She needed to hear him, to touch him. The only ones who had not intended to give up were the two male detectives. Watching their sister happy, just as relieved that the writer was safe, was better than anything else. They were so happy that they forgot about the fourth man, who was looking at them from nearby.

Backup arrived in around thirty minutes.

"Detective, step back please..."

A rescuer invited the woman to get up and move away. Even the firefighters had arrived, given that it wasn't easy to get him out of there, and a stretcher was needed. At least Kate could now breathe; Esposito stepped forward to call his family, and Beckett observed everything carefully. Now she had become more paranoid than before.

Castle felt more reassured at the sight of all those people, and fell asleep quietly on the stretcher with a slight smile on his lips. The climb from the chasm to bring the victim back up from that hell had been a bit hard, but not impossible.

Once they had managed to come up again, Richard was led to the ambulance, in which time was taken to measure his blood pressure and make a first check on him.

Only then Kate remembered about the mysterious man.

* * *

She turned around and saw him inside the building, and then, making sure that the ambulance would not leave right away, she went to him. He was still wearing the mask.

"Thank You."

The man took it off and began to observe the metal object. And then her.

"You don't have to thank me... it had to be this way..."

"...What's going to happen then?... Now..."

"Go to him..." Was all he told her. That safe and strong tone she had heard earlier had disappeared:; it was now charged with emotion.

"It's... strange..."

The mysterious man named Richard put the mask in his backpack, started to walk backwards, and then he stopped. The woman's green eyes followed him.

"In my world... where I come from... She's no longer with me..." He started feeling a big lump in his throat. "Someone... has taken her away from me... I would be selfish if I went back and claimed the woman I loved. But I could have never borne seeing you lose the man you love, as it happened to me. But I'm used to it now, because I lost her this way." He stopped a moment trying to hold back the tears. "I lost her. But you Kate, you have to live him. You don't have to think that one day he could turn his back on you, now he needs you more than you think." He said, feeling a tear running down his cheek. That statement made it clear to her that he still needed her.

"And you have to feel lucky... realize that life has given you a gift. Your mother left you a gift." He turns to look at the other himself in the ambulance. "Now he will wake up, and I would like you to be with him. I would like you to be the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes. He will feel you, because you are the person who saved his life... because he has always believed that you would come save him."

As soon as she heard his speech, that was deep and charged with sadness, she started sobbing uncontrollably. She tried to imagine, not fully succeeding, how she would have felt her if she hadn't found her other half anymore, or if she had gotten there too late. That's why _that _Richard was there.

Then he approached her to look at her more closely.

"I'm happy to have seen you, to have met you again". Now his cerulean eyes sparkled with renewed hope. "I missed these eyes... and this smile." He told her stroking her cheek, wiping away some of her tears. "Your Rick is alive Kate... he has been saved by your hope. Your love for him has saved him. Now go back to him... I'll go away knowing that I have seen a world where you are happy again."

Giving her one last delicate caress, he gained strength and walked back towards the inside of the prison.

"_Rick_!" Called Beckett, catching his attention.

"She loves you... she has always loved you. I don't know if she's been able to tell you that... but she has always loved you. And if you think it was your fault, it's not. She never stopped hoping that you would save her.. you'll meet her again Rick... I'm sure you'll meet her again."

As she walked away, Kate didn't have the strength to watch him leave, she couldn't hold back the tears. She felt that she had experienced a paradoxical situation, in which she had felt close to the man who had actually lost her and at the same time sad because she would never see him again; she would have never enjoyed a life with him, together with him. She felt dying inside.

Her Richard was alive, thanks to the sacrifice of another man who had lost his love in another life.

She got on the ambulance. Richard was sleeping, but began waking up under her touch, mumbling with complaint. Opening his sapphire eyes, he was excited to see her again, careful to reassure her about his health, happy that his hope hadn't been vain, wishing to return home and to hug his family, which she was a part of.

Tears began to fall from his eyes.

"Kate..." He sighed with his throat still hurting.

"I'm here Rick... you'll soon hug Alexis and Martha. You need to rehydrate, and you'll feel better." She told him caressing his cheek, crying nervously. She couldn't even imagine what they had done to him during all those days, and the thought that he had almost died alone and with a sense of abandonment was unbearable.

But he was alive.

He's alive... and they are together.

From the distance, the Richard of the future looked at the couple for the last time, contemplating the melancholic picture of a happy present. The woman he loved, with the Richard she loved.

He would have brought away with him those pictures that were already giving him a new perspective of life. Hope.

And so it happened... Richard had rewritten the ending.


End file.
